HUMA 2740

Lecture 14

- Brought techniques to change look of American movies and influence

continued in horror and science fiction genres for decades
- F.W. Murnau came at invitation of American studio owner William Fox
o Led Murnay to US to capitalize on fame he achieved after
making some of the internationally respected films from
Germany in early 1920s, included Nosferatu (1922), The Last
Laugh (1925) and Faust (1926)
o Murnau offered a large budget and complete artistic control,
something other movie studios reluctant to give their directors

The State Department and Hollywood (1920s)

- Federal govt rarely tried to interfere directly in affairs of movie

industry
- Create of Bureau of Motion Pictures (BMP), larger part of Office of
War Information (OWI)
- Job of OWI to coordinate all activities of various US media in way that
was consistent with supporting the war effort during WW2
- MPPDA designed to coordinate numerous activities of movie
business and had single spokesperson, Will Hays – one of the
activities was to provide support for the export activities of the
American film companies
- Lesser known relationship between Hollywood (under backings of
MPPDA) (film industry) and fed govt State’s Dpt and Dpt of
Commerce, began to take shape in 1920s
 - All three parties realized that export of American movies had a
number of important ratifications
- Affected attitude of people in foreign countries towards Americans
- E.g. movies showing America (or part of it) in negative light caused
anxiety among people whose job it was to facilitate economic and
diplomatic relations between US and other countries
Television as Ordinary

- Only engaged viewer and interpretive community seems poised to

closely read the televisual text
- Rest of these roles seem mundane and open to use whenever we
wish to assume them
- Television as agent of socialization and enculturation
- TV’s position as mundane makes it largely unthreatening, requiring
little mindfulness from its users and viewers
- TV provides an environment for incidental learning
- Symbolic cohesion necessary for each program to be a vehicle for
advertising sets up a world view that celebrates commercialism,
consumerism, and contemporary capitalism
- Influence not the same control
- Engaged viewers can regard TV with a critical consciousness that
does contest, challenge and struggle with its visions
- Cultivating such a consciousness is not part of TV’s industrial agenda
- Nor is critical consciousness inherent in our 10 ways to approach TV
in everyday life: close readers not necessarily oppositional readers
- Ability to achieve critical consciousness remains rooted in intersection
between the political economy in which we live, the collectivities with
 whom we live, the sense that we make of lived contradictions, and
the agency that we exercise together
- Critical consciousness rooted in both the abstract relationships and
lived experiences that constitute our ordinary world
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